New Tumblr 'Pages' Feature Gives It Another Leg Up On WordPress

Tumblr, the insanely simple blogging system that has been
praised for its clean design, only rarely adds new features.
This is generally the right strategy, because most blogging
systems are far too complex, and Tumblr's spartan feature set
really sets it apart from competitors like WordPress and TypePad.

But this week the company added one smart new feature that, while
slightly increasing Tumblr's complexity, will make it much more
useful for people who already have an existing blog (and want to
move it to Tumblr), or for companies and individuals that want to
build an entire Web site based on the Tumblr platform.

Pages are designed to be used for things like an "About" or
"Contact" page, or anything else that you don't want to be
considered a time-based, newsy "post." Unlike posts, Pages won't
go in the reverse-chronological flow of a site's river, and won't
feed out over RSS.

This is a great feature because it:

Allows companies to have a slightly more elaborate site,
completely powered by Tumblr, that includes an "About" or
"Contact" or "Advertise" page.

Can be used to create old URLs from your previous site,
either as pages on your new site, or as auto-redirects to another
domain (such as oldblog.mydomain.com). This would be cumbersome
to set up if it's more than a few dozen URLs, but Tumblr could
eventually automate this somehow.

Has been a popular part of WordPress and TypePad for years.

What's the point? This gives Tumblr yet another leg up on
WordPress and TypePad -- in addition to its simplicity and rich
community, the main reasons for using Tumblr -- for people and
companies who want very simple blog tools. We'd note that Twitter
already uses Tumblr for one
of its two blogs, and AT&T's
new blog to promote its first Android phone is based on
Tumblr.

Tumblr is still far behind the WordPress and TypePad domains in
traffic, but it's steadily building. This obviously doesn't take
blogs into account that use separate domain names, but it should
be directionally accurate.